Role and responsibilities

The Emergency Response Assistant is responsible for providing quality support to emergency response pertinent to NRC Ethiopia programs, ensuring that distribution processes are in accordance with NRC and donor’s guidelines and procedures, with extensive travel to remote and hard to reach Areas in Ethiopia. This includes preparation and management of distributions processes liaising with programs and logistic department, and other stakeholders i.e. partner organization, community leaders.

He/she always needs to be ready to be deployed for short period or relocated to any of the NRC areas of operation with short notice, to support NRC’s emergency responses.

Generic responsibilities 

• Support emergency activities in line with proposals, strategies, and donor requirements guided by ERM and Emergency Response Officer
• Adhere to NRC Emergency Standard Handbook and other NRC policies.
• Support the distribution operation of the Emergency program by identifying needs of distribution, keeping up to date with information on movement of IDPs.
• Ensure emergency response related documents are well recorded and archived.
• Assist with the logistics and procurement activities related to emergency response and ensure that they are conducted in accordance with NRC’s logistics handbook.
• Support, liaise and coordinate with LOGs Department transport arrangement of Emergency Items, and on the site prior to distribution.
• Support Emergency Response officer in preparation for distributions and liaising with community leaders, volunteers, partners, and beneficiaries.
• Promote rights of conflict on disaster-affected people and ensure mainstreaming of protection concerns in all emergency response activities.

Specific responsibilities 

• Conduct/participate in multi-sector assessments through Key Informant Interviews, Focus Group Discussions, and meetings with key stakeholders and collate information into assessment reports for each undertaken.
• Attend to all distribution activities, maintain record off and distribute vouchers.
• Maintain a database system, data entry, keep data up to date.
• Managing volunteers at site, organizing them into necessary roles, managing the crowd and ensuring necessary information flows between all parties.
• Ensuring distributions are calm and efficient and that any disputes are avoided/ resolved.
• Ensuring all administrative tasks are complete i.e. beneficiary/ registration lists, entering data into excel.
• Responsible for coordination with M&E for Post Distribution monitoring (PDM) surveys
• Representing the organization externally, under the guidance of line manager
• Always be prepared for the delivery Emergency response, appropriately and timely.
• Ensuring that all relevant stakeholders have information about the organization’s background, program, objectives, working areas, duration of programs and activities in the field.
• Perform ad hoc duties assigned by line supervisor.

Competencies 

Competencies are important for the employee and the organization to deliver desired results. They are relevant for all staff and are divided into the following two categories:

Professional competencies 

These are skills, knowledge and experience that are important for effective performance.

Generic professional competencies for this position: 

• Experience from working cash, food security, WASH, Shelter related project implementation positions in a humanitarian/recovery context.
• Previous experience in Cash Based intervention in Emergency/Rapid Response Mechanism
• Degree in Disaster Risk Management, Wash/Shelter related, or any other relevant discipline with solid experience in Emergency response.
• Previous experience from working in complex and volatile contexts.
• Documented results related to the position’s responsibilities.
• Good knowledge of English, both written and verbal, local language is an advantage.
• Previous experience in implementing Emergency/Rapid Response Mechanism-

Context/ Specific skills, knowledge, and experience: 

• 1-2 years’ experience working in a humanitarian/recovery context in different regions of Ethiopia.
• Effective communication, interpersonal, and negotiation skills.
• Overall good knowledge of geography and local population demographics/dynamics.
• Experience with capacity-building and training approaches and methods.
• Experience with community engagement approaches and principles.
• Experience with community engagement and development of civil society capacity.
• IT competencies including MS Office.

Behavioral competencies

These are personal qualities that influence how successful people are in their job. NRC’s Competency Framework states twelve behavioral competencies and the following are essential for this position:

• Handling insecure environment
• Strategic thinking
• Empowering and building trust
• Influencing
• Initiate action and change
• Analyzing

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) Geneva leads NRC’s representation with the IASC and UN agencies, and coordinates donor engagement with the UN and Swiss donors. NRC strives to assist and protect vulnerable and displaced people during crises, especially in situations of conflict. Established in 1946, NRC is an independent, humanitarian, non-profit, non-governmental organisation working in around 31 countries with approximately 14’000 staff. NRC employs a rights based approach, challenging those with responsibility to uphold the rights of displaced people set out within national and International Laws. NRC endeavors to secure the acceptance of local stakeholders for activities and is committed to the principles of humanity, neutrality, independence and impartiality.

NRC seeks to engage with all relevant actors in order to promote the full respect for the rights of displaced and vulnerable people; secure and maintain access for humanitarian operations and promote the achievement of durable solutions. NRC Geneva, with the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC), are NRC’s primary presence in Geneva.